February is a bleak month no doubt about it. There’s not much going on outdoors (unless one skis, which one doesn’t) and it. is. cold. Baking is one of those things whose idea itself is warm and cozy. And what better to bake than a loaf cake that will go excellently with those endless cuppas that make winter worthwhile.

My family loves its nuts. (I live with 3 male members..what can I say.) We always have peanuts, cashews, almonds and pecans in our house although I very rarely cook with them. A nut loaf brimming with nutty goodness, low in fat, enhanced with caramely date chewiness seemed like just the ticket for a baking morning. This loaf is not too sweet (I always cut down on sugar in professional recipes), although it can do with even less. I made a few other modifications — used pecans instead of the more common walnuts, added unsweetened applesauce for part of the liquid (OJ in this case) and pureed the dates. Result: a perfectly light loaf that’s just as good toasted and buttered or as is.

Blend the softened dates (with the water) into a puree (coarse or smooth as per your preference. Mine had tiny date pieces left and that was fine). Add date mixture to the wet ingredient mix.

Mix flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl, then slowly add to the wet mix.

Pour into lined tin and bake for about 40 mins or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. (If you have to rush out to, say, pick up the kids, ahem, before the toothpick comes out quite clean, leave the slightly underdone loaf inside the turned-off oven until you get back. It’ll be fine, I promise.)

Enjoy its yummy scrumptiousness with a guilt-free slice at tea time knowing that you did all you could towards healthy dessert eating. If you’re lucky, your kids might even deign to consider this a legit after-school snack — win win.

I bake cookies for a home biz, I consider myself a fairly intuitive cook and an overall can-do individual. Until now the one thing that I could NEVER do was bake a cake I liked. It just. wouldn’t. happen. Too eggy, not spongy enough, too dry, meh, underbaked, overdone — I’ve done it all. I gave up on cakes a long time ago.

And then a friend pointed me to Laura Vitale, an Italian chef whose recipes she swears by. I was skeptic but I gave it a try. And boy, was my friend not kidding! I adapted the recipe a bit and made the best dozen chocolate cupcakes of my life. The structure transfers well to cake as well. Soft, spongy and intensely chocolatey.

One of the oddities of the UK is that buttercream isn’t popular here as a frosting, fondant is. And I can.not stand that thing. It’s too rubbery and just…bleh. V wanted a buttercream cake, and it’s almost impossible to find a bakery that will make one here. So I decided (again) to give it a go.

The cake rose beautifully the first time and I fell in love with those luscious cracks. The taste is slightly fudgey (although the cake itself ins’t dense at all) and caramely because of the brown sugar. Once cooled, the cake holds its shape without being dry, perfect for layering or tiering.

For the birthday cake, I baked two of these babies and sliced each in half horizontally. Piped a buttercream dam and filled with chocolate ganache before piling up the layers. Crumb coated with buttercream, then divided the remaining into 4 colours : moss green, teal, nursery green and white. Check out the various ombre cake tutorials on YouTube for the actual technique. It’s super simple, highly forgiving of beginners and offers dramatic results.

Notice that my cake is slightly lopsided and unfinished at the bottom, mistakes to rectify for the next time. (Also, I ran out of buttercream.) But it was so well received by a bunch of 11yos, and most importantly my highly picky son, that I was mighty pleased! Try it, you won’t be disappointed.